The 2002 World Cup winner believes the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) needs to work closer with the government, club sides and ex-professionals to improve football at every level in the country.

Having won the right to host the 2014 tournament - despite their bid leading to mass protests due to the amount of money required to stage the World Cup - Brazil could not deliver the trophy and were humiliated in the semi-finals as they crashed out following a 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Germany.

Holland then inflicted more pain as they beat the hosts to win the third-place play-off 3-0 and Gilberto reckons the problems are much deeper than the current crop of internationals simply not measuring up to their predecessors.

"It is hard to say where things went wrong," he told BBC Radio 5Live's Sportsweek.

"It is not all about the national team - it is about what is happening in Brazilian football. They way people administrate football and run football in this country, they must work better on coaching schools and academies.

"There is something also with the country's problems - at some point that is nothing to do with football but at times they come together.

"Everyone expected us to win as a solution for the problems in our country but I hope people pay attention and try to work better to find a solution, that is what I want."

The former Arsenal midfielder revealed he had teamed up with a number of former internationals to raise concerns about the running of the Brazilian game 12 months ago - but their approach fell on deaf ears.

"There are group of players who have good sense, I'm involved with them and we are trying for better solutions on the football side and I hope from now on that people pay attention to what we are asking for," he said.

"A group of players, we have good sense, we asked for months - we spoke to CBF and the government to speak about the situation and the football.

"Now people are starting to pay attention about what we asked, sometimes they don't pay wages for the players and are not very good at administration there are a lot of problems and they cant solve that.

"At some point the crack comes and today isn't the factor for what has happened now in the World Cup it has come from the last 10 years.

"Year by year there is something wrong and at some point you feel the pain - slowly and slowly it has come to this point. People think it is just because we lost but it has been happening a long time."